Marshmallow Coast – Memory Girl

Jan11

As warm and boisterous as an eager summer day yet but one lined with intimate shadows carrying their own magnetic melancholy, the new album from Marshmallow Coast is little short of pure captivation. Across near on thirty minutes and eight cheerfully swinging tracks, Memory Girl is a fresh electro pop rock lover very easy to take in the imaginative arms and boisterously dance with.

Hailing out of Athens, Georgia, Marshmallow Coast is the brainchild of Andy Gonzales (The Music Tapes, of Montreal, Mind Brains).With Sara Kirkpatrick, Jim Hix, and Steven Trimmer alongside the band has conjured a release which embraces the senses like the rising morning sun. It is rich in warmth and hope, suggestive in knowing intimacy and understanding yet as mentioned has that darker intimation which haunts everyday life and new experiences.

Memory Girl begins with Warm Bodies and immediately the song’s balmy air and comfy touch hugs the senses. Its buoyant stroll is boisterous yet has a restraint which has hips swaying rather than the body bouncing but movement as inescapable as it is eager. There is an eighties synth pop glow to the track, a bright and engaging hue spilling across the whole of the release as swiftly confirmed by next up Take You On. With a gentler urgency to its gait as firm beats pounce with metronome like insistency, the song is a hazier affair compared to its predecessor. Indeed keys bring an almost dirty breeze to their otherwise crystalline shimmer at times, Gonzales’s tones falsetto similarly kissed whilst providing a warmly affectionate proposition to song and listener within the embrace.

Lover’s Leap follows, sauntering in with a bold funk nurtured swagger as guitars melodically tease around it. Again the body was manipulated into involvement as the resourcefully infectious track cheerfully strolled along though once again a raw mist of sonic intimation rears its suggestive head throughout the captivation before making way for the equally inviting K. Freeman Enslaved with its Orange Juice-esque jangle and that eighties synth pop exuberance which itself brings a further XTC like imagination.

Through the electro pop exploits of Sinz Of My Father, a track which is something akin to a meeting of Thomas Dolby and Devo, and Shooting Star with its tantalising celestial glide, the album just accentuated its hold on ears and appetite with the first of the two emerging as a real favourite play by play. They are in turn matched in success by the funk pop waltz of the increasingly compelling Foxy Boy, a track which almost stalks the listener with an infectious smile on its face and a seductive tease in its movement.

The album’s title track brings things to a close and though it is a song which did not grip our ears as tightly and dramatically as its predecessors, it left a warm glow and a taste for more of its mellow, thoughtful, and sultry intimation.

It is a fine end to a release which just grew in presence and temptation by the play; its summery haze a real but knowing escape to the shadows of daily life.

Memory Girl is out now through Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records.

https://www.facebook.com/marshmallowcoast/

Pete RingMaster 8/01/2019

Matt Finucane – Disquiet EP

Oct19

Following the release of Ugly Scene this past May, an “abrasive, noise-heavy protest” of an encounter, British alt rock troubadour Matt Finucane has its successor, Disquiet, poised for unveiling. Living up to its name, the EP is a collection of songs which as mellow and intimate as they are, come soaked in discord and melodic dissonance. They all breed a mix of challenge and seduction but most of all a fascination leaning towards needing more.

Having come across Finucane back in 2012 through his acclaimed album, Glow in The Dark, an encounter which had us simultaneously absorbed and confused, pleased yet unsure and most of all compelled to pay attention to its creator ahead, there has been constant intrigue to follow how things evolve. Fair to say feelings around Disquiet have not ventured too far away yet the enjoyment of his sound has certainly continued to grow through the offerings between both releases and is now at its most eager with the latest encounter.

As all his propositions, Disquiet is a DIY cast summons on ears and imagination as raw as it is creatively animated with opener Ulterior Motives quickly establishing Finucane’s distinct character of enterprise. Its acoustic/electric indie pop dances and flirts with ears though biding its time disharmony haunts the shadows brewing its infestation by the chord until eventually sparking a low key but inescapable cacophony for a captivating incursion of senses and song. The track epitomises the indefinable nature of his music; art and punk rock possible tags, wonk pop and dark folk others but honestly it is in a corner of its own.

The darker woozy presence of Happy Chains continues the contradiction and temptation, it’s off kilter shimmer and Finucane’s equally divisive vocals infesting melodic radiance like disorientating haze over a sunspot while the following People Move On exposes its fuzz seeded instincts. There is something akin to the kind of music artists like Frank Black and Pere Ubu have spread to Finucane’s sound, certainly a hue in its want and need to unsettle the expected and orthodox.

The EP concludes with firstly the warped melodic reflection of Always A Shadow, a track which feels like the aural side of a distorted mirror, and finally the seven minute plus journey of Dead Men Sing Us To Our Rest. In a cavernous embrace of echo and distortion, emotively and physically, the track is a malaise of frictious harmony, melodic discrepancy, and pretty much unnerving beguilement.

There is no doubt that the music of Matt Finucane is not going to sit easy with a great many but for those with a penchant for disturbing adventure and the song of the asylum, it and Disquiet should definitely be checked out.

The Disquiet EP is out October 19^thvia Crude Records; available @ https://mattfinucane.bandcamp.com/album/disquiet

https://mattfinucane.net/ https://www.facebook.com/Matt.x.Finucane/

Pete RingMaster 19/10/2018

Tommy And The Commies – Here Come

Oct8

Entangling the addictive hooks of Buzzcocks, the pop contagion of The Undertones, and the punk irreverence of The Cortinas with the early mod punk instincts of The Jam sounds like one rather tasty aural recipe; a mix which the imagination does not have to merely ponder as it is at the heart of the irresistible sound of Canadian outfit Tommy And The Commies. Their debut release, Here Come, soon proves there is much more of an individual character and flavouring to the band’s sonic holler though, a sound which you just feel would have been as potent back in the late seventies as it will undoubtedly be now.

From Sudbury, Ontario, Tommy And The Commies is the united exploits of Jeff Houle (Strange Attractor), his brother Mitch, and frontman Tommy Commy. Together they create “hooliganistic mod-punk” as nostalgic as it is rigorously fresh and in raucous evidence within the Slovenly Records released Here Come. The album immediately erupts with opener Devices, vocals and guitar colluding in instant temptations as rhythms boisterously roll. Very quickly we found ourselves agreeing with the Howard Devoto spicing to Tommy’s vocals as suggested by the album’s press release, but as within the music individuality soon wins through. The track continues to romp and stomp with punk/power pop infectiousness inciting body and vocal chords from start to finish, success only matched and escalated across the remaining slices of viral boisterousness and tenacity.

The following Straight Jacket shares its own virulent catchiness; from its first breath getting under the skin with excited riffs and melodic enterprise. Slightly more restrained in urgency than its predecessor, the track is still an unbridled bundle of energy and creative uproar bounding along without inhibition before Permanent Fixture springs its Dickies scented revelry. Again riffs and hooks collude in its excitable endeavour as rhythms robustly stir and bite within a full fusion of the familiar and new.

Something akin to 999 meets The Vapors, Hurtin’ Boys provides another major highlight in nothing but across the album; its jagged stroll swift and a constant incitement on body and spirit before new single Suckin’ In Your 20’s entangles raw seventies power pop with modern day indie dissonance to similarly manipulate hips and throat.

A definite hint of The Ramones teases within the wiry antics of Throwaway Love, the guitar laying a mesh of hooks and melodic niggling which just brought lust to the appetite as rhythms simultaneously worked away on a body just as much badgered and inspired by the infectious clamour of So Happy where a Pixies like hue adds to inescapable temptation.

The release closes up with Reggie Rocks, another irrepressible slice of mod infused pop punk which is all mischief and noisy attitude wrapped in instinctive enterprise and contagion; a track which throughout epitomises the fun and energy of the band let alone their creative animation.

For us the best releases leave you feeling alive and inspired; Here Come does that and more.

Here Come is out now via Slovenly Records; available @ https://slovenly.bandcamp.com/releases

https://www.facebook.com/TOMMYSCOMMIES/

Pete RingMaster 06/10/2018

12 Stone Toddler – Idiolalia

Oct6

Whilst it is hard to believe wishes generally do come true we have to question that when a long time hope has just been realised with the release of a new album from one of the UK’s most unique and irresistible bands, 12 Stone Toddler.

The band created two of the last decade’s most essential albums for us in the 2007 released Does It Scare You? and its successor two years later, Scheming. They also uncaged a host of tracks which defined the inherent brilliance and unpredictability of their songwriting and sound including The Rabbit, a song which first had us deviously hooked on the band and has never escaped our personal playlist ever since. Though thickly wrapped in acclaim, the band never quite had the rich attention and recognition they deserved outside of their more local surroundings and subsequently seemed to step back into the shadows as its members explored other projects. It is a band though which we know has been the inspiration to a great many artists, all who will be rejoicing with us and fans at their return and a new album in Idiolalia which is 12 Stone Toddler craft and goodness at its most inimitable and mischievous.

With a new line-up seeing guitarist Helen Durden and drummer Robin O’Keefe alongside founder members and songwriters in keyboardist Ben Jones and bassist/vocalist Chris Otero, the Brighton hailing band has linked up with Freshly Squeezed Music for the release of Idiolalia. Immediately as its opener teases ears there is affirmation of what we already knew, the 12 Stone Toddler sound is impossible to pin down or make assumptions about. Musically the band embrace and indulge in strong flirtations with everything from and within rock, pop, and indie to swing, jazz, and more vaudevillian hued exploits; every emerging track individual in character and sound but united in the quartet’s one of a kind touch and imagination.

My Machine starts things up and once its mechanical workings are in order springs a swagger led stroll which needed mere seconds to get under the skin. With a steam punk like breath, the track continues to swing and sway on a manipulative rhythmic pulse, carnival-esque melodies escaping keys to spice guitar bred hooks as the familiar and potent tones of Otero provide a ringmaster like touch. It is an irresistible and irrepressible start to the album instantly setting down a rich marker in the second chapter of 12 Stone Toddler.

The following Give Me the Creeps is just as rousing and magnetic, building its own inescapable lure over a handful of seconds before casting an individual appraisal of life with melodic charm and fascination stirring enterprise. As with their music, the band has always conjured imagery and sparked the imagination with their lyrical prowess and as shown by the first two tracks alone they have lost none of that dexterity.

The animated surf swing of the outstanding Piranha just captivated and mastered inhibitions in hips and feet next while Mirrorball latches fifties seeded breeding to jazz nurtured devilment in its swingbeat flavoured gait for matching success. Add the insatiable rock ‘n’ roll of Just Enough Rope and the almost somnambulistic canter of Carried Away, a track which just blossoms by the listen with its melodic radiance creating something akin to Skylarking era XTC, and you have the kaleidoscopic nature and sound of 12 Stone Toddler in a beguiling nutshell and their ingenuity. The third of that foursome of treats is a wonderfully nagging proposal, its groove niggling away as keys squirt their melodic spicery across the fevered body infesting jive invading the passions.

Across the eager eventful waltz of Heavy Sleeper and the smouldering and increasingly heated melodic sunspot of Nice Surprise, ears are only pleasured by instinctive temptation. Both though still find themselves eclipsed by the following pair of Ride a Donkey and Runaway Train. Neither track was included in the promo sent our way but found to be joining the rest within the album and together providing another major highlight. The first teases with its air scything lures alongside Otero’s enticing vocals before the track’s swarthy landscape embroils country sighs with seaside town quaintness before its simply superb successor takes the listener on a journey of sound and voice escalating the intimation of its title note by syllable.

The final trio of tracks leave no second of sound or pleasure void of bold adventure and imagination, Dig a Hole kicking off the home straight with its virulent manner and step before the senses romancing saunter of The Borrowing Song serenades with the theatre and unpredictability you can actually expect from a 12 Stone Toddler offering. The album closes with one half of the band’s current double-A sided single, Heaven Was Closed, the other part of that teaser opening up Idiolalia. It is a warm and sultry piece of pop rock which simply seduced by the play.

It has been a long wait for 12 Stone Toddler to stir back into life but an intermission in their creativity well worth enduring as they are back as inventive, compelling, and intoxicating as ever.

Idiolalia is out now via Freshly Squeezed across most major stores.

http://www.12stonetoddler.com/ https://www.facebook.com/12stonetoddler https://twitter.com/12stonetoddler

Pete RingMaster 06/10/2018

TV Coma – Body Negativity

Sep25

If you can imagine the results of Weezer and Swound! musically cavorting with Jan and Dean alongside Blur with a punk nurtured revelry you can get a whiff of the sound of TV Coma though not necessarily the individual mischief and enterprise rampaging through their debut EP, Body Negativity. It offers six tracks of unbridled fun and boisterous deeds amongst cleverly manipulative creative antics and is simply one of the most enjoyable exploits we have greedily indulged in this year.

Emerging from the songwriting revelry of brothers Leo and Max Troy, St Albans hailing TV Coma is a foursome by bassist Jamie Rider and drummer Robert Clark. They also seemingly embrace the punk DIY ethics of yesterday with their first release recorded in Max’s bedroom who then mixed the tracks himself before passing them over to Alan Douches (Ben Folds Five, Converge, Sufjan Stephens, Mastodon) to add his professional gleam to things. The result is an encounter which has an organic roar and an instinctive devilry and one which eagerly gets under the skin with unbridled fun in close quarter.

Have A Party kicks things off and rises up from an encroaching sonic lure with big scythes of guitar and matching rhythms. Everything is an intriguing tease leading to the first vocal rally cry before things settle again into a calm stroll and reflection. It in turn invites ears and listeners to its subsequent chant loaded bellow and a finale which the body, if not already bouncing, can no longer escape. Seriously contagious with a great rock muscularity and edge to it, the track is a glorious invitation into the waiting fiendish clutches of EP and band.

There is no escaping thrusting a Weezer likeness to the following Digital Girl, the LA band one of the major inspirations for the brothers. Even so, the track is ablaze with raw pop punk zeal as it is pop rock catchiness and swiftly inciting physical and vocal participation with its rousing holler before Trudy latches on to its infectious antics for its own particular weave of viral contagion. Something akin to Weezer meets We Are the Physics with Asylums in close attendance, the track just saunters along spilling grooves and hooks like confetti as rhythms cast their own manipulative incitement. Surf pop harmonies escalate the fun and listener’s involvement with a track which never leaves a moment void of creative rascality.

A sonic clamour announces next up Unemployable; a short but attention stalking roar of angst and noise around more of the hooks and enterprising taunts the band seem to instinctively breed. The track instantly and effortlessly leads into inhibition losing shenanigans, reactions even more escalated with Football Song, a Blur meets Television Personalities howl which could easily be adopted by the sport’s fans or haters.

Grow Up completes the line-up of plaintive ejaculations. From its initial vocal wail to the punk rock soaked blaze of sound, the track is a zealously waving finger at immaturity and irresponsible fun whilst creatively providing both.

With each track sparked by traits within modern life, Body Negativity is one spirit rousing adventure. It might not be the best thing you come across in 2018, though it very well could be too, but there will be few as memorable and even fewer as relentlessly enjoyable.

Body Negativity is out now and available @ https://tvcomamusic.bandcamp.com/releases

https://www.facebook.com/tvcomamusic/ https://twitter.com/tvcomamusic

Pete RingMaster 22/09/2018

Moonshot – Last Train Home

Sep6

Try tracking them down in Google and UK bred Moonshot is an eagerly evasive proposition but musically they are one warmly welcoming pleasure especially courtesy of new album, Last Train Home.

Consisting of Dan Kent and Rich Wolfe, Moonshot is an electronica weaving melancholy embracing duo which have been no strangers to praise and recognition through previous releases. Last Train Home is our introduction to their sound which has been described as “Depeche Mode meets Pet Shop Boys and Hurts at Massive Attack’s house party!” You may easily add other eighties nurtured artists to that list yet the London and Margate hailing pair have a sound which is as potently individual as it is at ease revealing its likely inspirations. With radiance burning vocal harmonies and a melodic enterprise which almost physically resonates through every vein of the band’s writing, their new album has proved an unexpected and at times breath-taking treat.

It opens with the lively shimmer of Winter Within, instantly alluring electronic dew glimmering in ears before the song springs into its creative canter around falsetto set vocals. As another burst of energy is triggered, the duo’s truly captivating harmonic union descends perfectly tempered by the darker tone and pulsation of rhythms. Contagion soaks every aspect of the track, its lushness and shadowed intimation a cradle for the band’s vocal prowess and its own suggestiveness.

The following Winter Will Pass is a warmer glaze to the slight chill of its predecessor, again a crystalline soundscape conjured this time with a hue easy to hear why Depeche Mode has especially been mentioned in reference to the Moonshot sound. It too has a dark breath to its often cool caresses and is just as inescapably entrancing before the melancholic sombre of Dark Clouds floats across the senses and imagination. Kent and Wolfe are a sunspot of harmonious beauty, their vocal craft and ethereal dynamics the real sun and heart of the album but as here keenly backed by the understanding adventure and at times climatic contrast of their music. Like a fusion of The Radioactive Grandma and Ladytron the song is irresistible.

The steelier presence of next up Too Much makes just as potent an impression with its rockier ambience soaked saunter, guitars and synths gently swinging to the earnest croon of the vocals while Speak No Words offers a cinematic allusion to its shadow hearted intimacy. The latter also has an instinctive catchiness in its belly which erupts in a chorus which simply beguiles from within the song’s otherwise darkly lit slightly heavy climate. To be honest there are so many major highlights within Last Train Home, and though this may not consistently be one for personal tastes that chorus is aural alchemy.

Illuminations has its own distinct drama, its initial melodic crystals subsequently discoloured and revitalised by the dark atmospheric shadows and headier heavier touch of evocative rhythms. Vocals counter the song’s bold trespass with their usual harmonic radiation, seeping under the skin and into the imagination as richly as the apocalyptic theatre around them.

We did not take to the album’s title track as keenly as other songs yet its melodic luminance as unsurprisingly the band’s vocal enticement is impossible to gloss over as it entices on its way to passing satisfied ears over to Hunting Down the Hunter. You would not say the track was predatory but it definitely has a certain dark edge to its tone and touch even as its dance and infection creating instincts collude and escape into a broadening landscape of persuasion.

The final pair of The Way To Go, a caress of acoustic guitar and vocal reflection within an electronic misting which in certain moments rises to its dramatic feet with compelling tenacity, and the similarly accomplished Angels in the Snow ensures the album’s conclusion is a hug of captivation. The closer is a fascinating slice of storytelling adding just another dark meets light shade to the album’s creative landscape.

Truthfully we did not expect to enjoy Last Train Home anywhere as much as we did due to that fusion of comparisons earlier mentioned, but it was a surprise we have only greedily devoured. There is every chance you will too especially if electronic, pop, harmonic, and atmospheric enterprise is your particular treat.

Last Train Home is available now via F&G Records @ https://fandg.me/independent-label/shop

https://twitter.com/m00nshot

Pete RingMaster 06/09/2018

Lara Smiles – All For You

Aug25

There are times when you can only expect plaudits and ears to come chasing an encounter and one such moment is surely to surround the release of the debut album from British singer songwriter Lara Smiles. A truly magnetic festival of resourceful sounds and lively imagination, All For You is as rich in its variety and enterprise as it is determined in its aim to get the body bouncing and involved in inhibition losing fun. It is a treat of an introduction which just seems to get more impressive and manipulative by the listen.

With music never far from her ears and passion since a young child, seeds laid by the sounds her parents were playing, Lara has grown to embrace a host of styles and flavours which has nurtured the variety and diversity in her own writing and music. Among a host of major inspirations, the likes of Tina Turner, The Beatles, Paul Simon, Queen, Prodigy, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Muse, Beth Ditto, Green Day and Middle Eastern music heavily feature yet as her first full-length reveals, they have only gone to spark her own musical individuality. Since emerging she has also become a praise drawing presence on the UK live scene supporting the likes of Pete Doherty and playing some of the biggest festivals, including Glastonbury four times, the Isle of Wight Festival, and The Great Escape as well as also finding herself collaborating with The Orb, guesting on the new Shed Seven album, Instant Pleasures, and singing with The Australian Pink Floyd Show for the past eight years.

Mixed by Jamie Grashion and legendary producers Michael Rendall and Martin Glover aka Youth (Primal Scream, The Orb, Pink Floyd), her self-produced debut album is poised to thrust Lara into the limelight in her own rights. That is our expectations here and every venture through All For You only cements our thoughts.

Breeding a boisterous and tenacious, often ferocious blend of alternative rock and contagion loaded pop with a just as eager appetite for punk, electro and industrial rock with plenty more besides, the album opens up with the swiftly and increasingly magnetic Coincidence. A spiral of electronic enticement entangles ears first as crisp beats pounce, their combined lure soon reinforced by the hungry riffs of Lara’s guitar. Instantly intrigue and drama lines every emerging tendril turning, it evolving crystalline glamour and beauty as the song breaks into a melodic stroll alongside the seductive tones of Lara. The mercurial edge to the track though continues as its writhes around like a creative dervish, tantalising and fascinating at every turn whilst getting the release off to a tremendous start.

It is an overall inescapable enticement which continues through the following Save Yourself. Bubbling electronics and boisterous guitar align to the darker stroll of Joe Singfield’s bass as the rustle of Sara Leigh’s beats tease before leading the song in its own individual canter. In turn there is a devious urgency and aggressiveness which breaks out as the chorus escapes a calmer build up though that too has a dramatic edge which just sparks the imagination as potently as ears. Lara’s vocals have rich variety which relish her imagination and the equally diverse tapestry of sounds she ventures forth across this track alone it emerging as a compelling slice of punk lined pop ‘n’ roll.

The album’s title track comes next, bounding in on an irresistible incitement of a bassline which continues to manipulate as vocals and melodies dance. Ridiculously infectious and persuasive to hips and vocal chords, the track simply seduced compliance and participation whilst igniting an already firmly placed appetite for the release before Dictate Peace explores a whole new landscape of Eastern spiced teasing and imagination. Its summery stroll and breeze radiates captivation but also the darker shadows and strains of drama which impose their intrigue throughout; it all adding to a riveting invention which sees the listener taken through a web of creative espionage.

And It Hurts follows with its initial gentle elegant charms to the fore. They continue to entice as the fire in the heart and belly of the song smoulders and ignites note by note. With its blaze increased, energy erupts but so too another striking collusion of textures and flavours with the track continuing the great unpredictability of its predecessors and their instinctive contagion.

The folkish grace and melodic beauty of Oh How is pretty much aural intoxication straight after, Lara’s voice intimation carrying seduction and radiance while Disconnected provides a controlled but virulent contagion of pop rock with a compelling blend of spikiness and winning grins to its stomp. In turn, Zombie preys on the senses and body with its emotive irritability and electro funk catchiness. Like all tracks, it soon reveals its individually inventive escapade of unexpected twists which only accelerate its slavery of ears and involvement.

Penultimate song, The Fightings Over, needs mere seconds to have everything robustly involved in its punk ‘n’ rock bred bounce as thoughts align to its lyrical exploration, a tempestuousness in its air and attitude only adding to the incendiary theatre perfectly setting up the contrasting mellow and glowing yet melancholic repose of final track, Turn It Around. The individuality of this pair alone songs epitomises the variety thick All For You as a whole and of Lara’s songwriting which seems so effortlessly to cast real diversity and adventure.

There have been a few releases which have truly inspired and aroused us here this year, a couple this month alone and All For You sits boldly alongside giving real undiluted pleasure. Whether it sees Lara Smiles a household name we will see but it will surely establish her as one of our most exciting and unique talents.

All For You is released September 7^th via iTunes and other stores with its album launch show @ the Sebright Arms, London August 30^th.